Chapter 220: The Sea of Silence

As her wings slowly beat, the Perfected One stood suspended in silence above the ruined heart of the capital, now little more than rubble after her clash with the God of Terror. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss.

Then came the anomaly.

Though the colossal shadow of the God of Terror had been obliterated, the divine remnants of its power lingered, clinging to the earth as a black, translucent domain.

Now, that darkness began to stir, inexorably converging upon the Perfected One. As the black mist coiled tighter around it, layer upon layer fused into a sphere of absolute black, lightless and soundless, swallowing the Perfected One whole.

Even so, the Perfected One did not resist. Her body, bathed in pure white radiance, was snuffed out by the oppressive darkness.

The seed of terror that sprouted from the God of Terror's residual might rooted itself deeply in the heart of the Perfected One.

And within the sanctum of its mind, which had once been a blank slate of innocence, a shadowy speck germinated.

Tainted roots explored every recess of the Perfected One's vast, unsullied will. Fear, the most primal of emotions, took hold. As it spread, the Perfected One's pure, radiant soul darkened. Faint shadows appeared across its body: the corners of its eyes, behind its ears, nestled in the joints of its wings. Each was a silent bloom of terror.

The God of Terror drew strength from the fear nestled within souls. The Perfected One's soul—vast, boundless, and now tainted—had transformed into an inexhaustible wellspring. Through this emotional bridge, the God of Terror began to resonate with its counterpart.

Moments ago, the God of Terror had been annihilated, its flesh and consciousness all swept away by the divine tide of the Perfected One's might.

But now, through the residual terror it left behind, through the fear now germinating within the Perfected One, it would be reborn.

A new incarnation, nourished by terror, gestating within that flawless divine vessel...

Terror never truly died. So long as it clung to the soul, the God of Terror would never perish. It would persist, endlessly reborn in an eternal cycle of fear.

That rebirth was now taking place. Darkness swelled further. Behind the Perfected One, a translucent, nightmarish form took shape: a malformed head riddled with unblinking eyes, limbs twisted and shriveled, a bloated torso too grotesque to be human. The shadow of the God of Terror loomed once more.

Then, it moved.

Grasping the Perfection's shoulders with warped hands, entwining its deformed legs around the divine body's waist, it pressed its many-eyed head close, cheek to cheek.

From its innumerable eyes, black corruption burrowed into the Perfected One through her ears, mouth, nostrils, even the slits of her eyes. It poured itself into the pristine flesh, flooding it with terrible power.

And still, the Perfected One did not resist—because the moment fear took root in her soul, the Perfected One had, in some sense, ceased to be herself.

The grotesque silhouette at her back began to fade, not from weakness, but rather completion. The parasitic seed of the Perfected One had found and taken control of its new shell.

The Perfected One—by now, just a divine corpse—closed its eyes. And when it opened them again, they no longer gleamed with emotionless light, but with something darker. Something vast and fathomless.

The surrounding divine domain began to collapse inward. All the tendrils of terror that had stretched outward to consume the city were now reclaimed and absorbed anew.

The divine domain that had occupied the heart of the capital had been removed—but at what cost?

The God of Terror had just sent all its power into the Perfected One's divine shell to commandeer it whole.

Its form remained perfect—radiant, ethereal, and untouched. But that was nothing more than a beautiful lie. Its soul had been consumed by terror.

"...We are so fucked."

Wang Yu bared his teeth, swearing under his breath. The kingdom's trump card—it had just been hijacked.

"We handed them a perfect shell," he muttered, "and strengthened the bastard while we were at it. That's gotta be one of the worst outcomes imaginable."

The God of Terror had been destroyed, but it had corrupted the Perfected One in the process. And now the god had returned, born anew from the soul it had tainted.

Wang Yu had watched it all unfold, helpless. He felt a painfully familiar feeling. Back in the Forest of Fog, the God of Terror had been reborn again and again by feeding off Avia's fear, until she fainted and he—fearless as he was—had finally put an end to it.

But now? There was nothing he could do. True, he might not fear the god—but it was now nourished by the collective fear of the capital's people... and the Perfected One's own. Charging in would only mean instant death.

Then, his eyes caught sight of movement in the sky.

A blazing fireball arced overhead, falling toward the reborn god. It was a bombardment from the Stevenson Academy of Magic.

With it came a barrage of reality anchors, alchemical weapons crafted at tremendous expanse, once reserved for combating the void. They were now being mass-deployed like cheap bombs, flung from airships and floating islands.

Through the city's broken streets, the Nightblades and the royal guards began to emerge.

"Well," Wang Yu exhaled, "at least the bastard's got a body now. Better than when it was intangible..."

Shaking his head, he leapt from the top of the clocktower. Even as the world crumbled around him, he still harbored his signature optimism.

"Not my problem anymore. Time to find Avia. That's all I can do now. Fighting's off the table—getting her out is the only smart move."

He sprinted across the surviving rooftops of the capital, racing toward the city's shadow. There was absolutely no way he was going up against the God of Terror. If even the Perfected One had failed, what chance did he have?

Back in Rudolf's mansion, Sieg whirled around. "Let me out. I don't know what you're trying to hide, but it's clear there's no point in keeping it quiet anymore. Face it. The royals' plan has failed."

He stared down Rudolf, who did seem tense, but was mostly excited about having witnessed the birth of something new.

"...You're right," Rudolf finally admitted. "The institute's projections have deviated. If you can still act—go. The royal family miscalculated, and now we're all paying for it. If we can last until Fang returns, the capital might still have a sliver of hope. If not..."

He fell silent, then lifted the seal on the room without another word.

Sieg smashed the door open with a single blow and stormed out. He needed to find Noelle—and do whatever it took.

At that moment, Edward stood atop the Nightblades' headquarters on the surface of the capital, gazing from the observation deck toward the heart of the city. His face was dark, his expression conflicted.

"That madwoman... she was telling the truth. That Fatewatcher, the esteemed Seer of the Ryders—did she really foresee this exact moment?"

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The "angel" erupting from the depths of the capital's shadow had reawakened a deeply buried memory, one Edward had tried to forget.

Pernia Ryder, instigator of the Hellgate incident, had once told him this: "The Sovereign of Fear shall descend. Not even an Angel of the Abyss can stop it. That is why a variable is needed."

He murmured the words of the prophecy aloud. As chaos consumed the central plaza, every sign pointed to the unthinkable truth—that the woman they had dismissed as a lunatic had been right all along.

"Damn it..."

He slammed a fist into the wall beside him, filled with fury and helplessness.

Back in the plaza, the full arsenal of the capital was unleashed without restraint. Mana-charged bombardments rained from the sky. Reality anchors fell like meteors, crashing down upon the God of Terror. Fire and smoke cloaked his new form.

"Keep firing! Don't stop!"

The commander's roar cut through the din, a cry not aimed at any single faction but to every soul still standing. Around the square, the soldiers gave their all, pouring every ounce of strength into their assault on the god.

Enchanted arrows loosed from alchemical crossbows tore through the air like a torrential storm. The long-range techniques of knights and grand knights, the relentless casting of the accompanying battlemages—none of it ceased, not for a single breath.

They did not know how powerful the God of Terror truly was. They only knew they had no choice but to fight with everything they had, to defend their capital... and their lives.

The attacks converged from all directions, hiding the center of the plaza from view. No one dared stop. No one could say whether their strikes had even harmed the divine being in the slightest.

Unquestionably, the combined might of so many forces was staggering. Even a legend caught within the bombardment might not survive. And yet, for a god who now wielded the full strength of the Perfected One's shell, it was still far from enough.

"..."

The God of Terror stood unmoving beneath the barrage, letting the strikes land upon its form. Then it raised one exquisite, sculpted arm, an arm of divine artistry. A black orb manifested in its open palm.

It closed its fist. In that instant, the divine domain it had previously retracted burst forth again, the God of Terror at its core. It spread at a terrifying pace, engulfing everything around it, extending further and further until it began to envelop the entire capital.

Wang Yu, sprinting at full speed; the Nightblades and royal guard still locked in their desperate fight; Edward watching from above; Charles, just having emerged from the void around the marquis' manor; Sieg, who had just confirmed his sister was safe; Avia, protected by the power of the Lady of the Night—none escaped. All were swallowed by the god's expanding domain.

In the blink of an eye, half the capital vanished within a vast black hemisphere.

All fell silent.

Somewhere within the capital, after an interminable period of time, a Nightblade operative opened his eyes. The world was no longer the same. There was a faint susurrus, like that of distant waves upon the shore. He found himself suspended beneath a faintly glowing sea, slowly falling through its dim surface.

Below him was nothing but endless blackness. He didn't know why, but the longer he gazed downward, the more the fear inside him grew, raw, primal, and vast.

He struggled, flailing upward toward the faint light above, but an unseen force gripped him and dragged him down into the abyss.

His mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Even his formidable will could not shield him. The terror was too great. He could not—would not—fall into those sunless depths. An atavistic fear had gripped his soul.

There was no monster waiting below. There was nothing at all, nothing but the fall. Endless descent, eternal solitude, a cage with no floor and no walls—his mind wouldn't shatter. That, too, was part of the torment. The fall would go on, again and again, without end, in this sea of stillness.